Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld

Reading steam punk reminds me how exciting it feels to tear through a book where dramatic things are always happenings. At the moment I feel wary around adult fiction that promises big adventures, because I keep picking up novels where the adventure just isn’t that exciting, or the battle scenes rock, but the characters are unbearably pretentious.

‘Leviathan’ by Scott Westerfeld, showed once again that young adult novels can handle adventure narratives well and that creating an explosive battle scene is an endeavour of craft.

‘Leviathan’ begins in 1914, just after Archduke Ferdinand and his wife are murdered. Their deaths are the catalyst for the First World War, but in Westerfeld’s version of events their deaths also affect their young son Alek, who must flee from powerful, political enemies. In his family’s Stormwalker (a small war craft that walks on two legs) Alek and his two tutors journey to the neutrality of Switzerland. They are never at ease and must constantly fight for their lives.

In London, Deryn Sharp attempts to enter the Air Service, dressed as a boy. This is a steam punk novel so the British Air Service is a little different, the air craft are live pre-fabricated creatures, manmade whales and jellyfish, which need hydrogen to keep them afloat. The creatures were originally produced by Darwin and only Monkey-Luddites and I’m sure you can get a sense of how others view them from that slang phrase, object to these beasts being used for the good of the British Empire. Deryn’s first flight test is to board a Huxley, which is like a large, nervous jellyfish, but with happy memories of flying with her dad she’s sure she has the natural ability the Air Service values. An unexpected storm sweeps her off course and she is found by the ‘Leviathan’ airship and taken aboard as a midshipman. The crew of the ‘Leviathan’ will eventually come into contact with Alek and the two characters become wary allies, then friends as shared experiences allow them to bond.

Westerfeld’s steam punk world is exactly what I hoped to explore when I came up with the idea of reading steam punk for a month. It seems I prefer steam punk societies where the new technology is an active part of the story and technology plays a significant part in ‘Leviathan’. A political divide is drawn between form Clanker powers (countries that favour machinery) and Darwinist civilisations (countries that advocate using pre-fabs). Just as religion created many real political alliances throughout history, technology determines which countries fight against each other in ‘Leviathan’. The two different forms of technology also become homes to the main characters, as Deryn and Alek live in their war ships and this allows the author to explore the mechanical logic that makes the technology work in detail. Having the characters live in the technology, provides a way to make technology personal and important, in the same way that setting your character’s lives on a ship can make the way a ship works more interesting. There’s plenty of imaginative technological detail to enjoy, like bats that excrete metal and the differences between classes of Clanker warships, but the way the technology works is explained simply for younger readers so even technophobes like me can understand how the pieces fit together.

As ‘Leviathan’ is written for younger readers (the book jacket recommends from 10 years old and up) the sentences were compact and the paragraphs were often exceptionally short, which I guess is designed to hold the attention of younger children. The fact that I didn’t feel anything lacking because of the writing’s compact style opened my mind to reading more of what Americans call middle grade fiction, which I’ve always assumed is a bit too simplistic to satisfy adult readers (I know, I know, I am converted now, sorry about that). The style was actually better suited to battle scenes and adventure episodes than the longer sentences similar adult fiction often uses. Books full of action should be purposeful, with tight description, so the simpler style of writing for younger readers really fits with extremely active narratives. The writing in ‘Leviathan’ reminded me of some of my favourite action/adventure novels from my childhood, which were fun and always felt like they made every word count , like Tamora Pierce’s ‘The Song of the Lioness’ series,. The freshness of the writing and the ease with which Westerfeld relates the excitement in a scene is invigorating and it makes me question why other writers weigh down their action scenes.

The only part of the book I disliked was the love story, which emerged at the end of the book. I have a multitude of feelings about this one small plot point and most of them are irrational. It’s irrational for me to hold the fact that Deryn contemplates giving up everything to protect Alek’s secret against ‘Leviathan’ but I do. By establishing such a strong friendship between Deryn and Alek, Westerfeld has set up valid textual reasons why Deryn would risk everything to protect Alek’s secret, but part of me sees Deryn falling in love with Alek, only to be transformed from a spunky, brave character into a plucky girl, whose bravery now comes from sacrificing what she wants for the good of others. It’s a little matter as Deryn realises her feelings for Alek at the end of the novel, but my mind just goes to these kind of things when I read. It’s irrelevant to say I think their friendship doesn’t need to become a love story (well it does, deal with the book at hand not the book you wish existed), but I don’t think it does and there it is. I’ll probably get over it.

That’s my review then. Now I’ll just go and wait patiently for the second book to be released (oh only later this year, well that’s much better than 2011). ‘The Leviathan’ will arrive in the Ottoman Empire and we’ll all find out what is in the eggs the ship is carrying. Can’t wait!

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